Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 09:15:51 EST
From: BERGDAHL%A1.OUVAX.mrgate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU
Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent
From: NAME: David Bergdahl
FUNC: English
TEL: (614) 593-2783
To: NAME: MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"
Rudy's anecdotes strike a familar cord, although I'm not as fluent in any
language: when I was on a Fulbright in Germany in '75/6 I relied heavily on my
German-speaking wife, but when I tried to access my year of college German I
kept coming up with Latin, from a semester of college study. Definitely there
must be a brain area for little-used languages! :-) In '88 when I was on an
exchange with the University of Toulouse I kept remembering German, although I
had studied French from grades 7-10 and for 2 yrs in college! The year of
living in Germany--and using it (or at least hearing it) with my wife's
family--must have switched it to L2 status!
Incidentally, my daughter Erika, who was placed in a 2nd grade classroom in
Goettingen, achieved native speaker competence (in Kinderdeutsch at least!) by
the time we'd left. Interestingly, her accent has degraded over the years and
now she speaks German with a decidedly American accent. She's gone on to study
French and Italian in h.s. and college and learned Spanish and Portuguese on her
own: she's convinved that the FL-exposure is what's made it easy for her to
learn languages.
David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU